Lera Auerbach’s “Little Mermaid” ballet receives prestigious Echo Klassik Award

Sept. 13, 2012 - PRLog -- New York -- Lera Auerbach's full-length ballet "The Little Mermaid," choreographed by John Neumeier, is recognized as the winner of the 2012 ECHO Klassik award for best DVD recording of the year (Live). Critically acclaimed and regarded as "a modern classic," the ballet has drawn crowds to more than 150 performances worldwide. Berlin music label C Major Entertainment produced the award-winning DVD.

Equivalent in prestige to the Grammy Awards, the Echo Klassik award ceremony is Sunday, October 14, and will be televised from Berlin's Konzerthaus via the German network ZDF. The awards honor outstanding performances on record of international classical music artists, and was created in 1992 by the German Phono Academy. Joining Auerbach and Neumeier as award winners are soprano Renee Fleming (singer of the year), Riccardo Chailly (conductor of the year) Claudio Abbado (opera of the year), Sir Simon Rattle (best symphonic recording of the year), and Anne-Sophie Muttler (concert recording of the year), among others.

The Royal Danish Ballet and the Hamburg Ballett jointly commissioned Lera Auerbach to compose “The Little Mermaid” score in 2005, which she dedicated to John Neumeier.

This season, “The Little Mermaid” will be staged for the National Ballet of China in Beijing, the Hamburg Ballett, and the Stanislavsky Theatre in Moscow. Auerbach and Neumeier have also collaborated on "Preludes CV," a full-length ballet based on Lera’s "24 Preludes for Violin and Piano," which will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Hamburg Ballett next year.

"When John asked me if I could compose the music for a full ballet based on Hans Christian Andersen's ‘Little Mermaid,’ he suggested using the storyline very freely, as source for inspiration, so that in return the music could inspire his choreography and vice-versa," says Auerbach. "It was a wonderfully organic collaboration for us and the resulting DVD really captures the San Francisco Ballet at its interpretive best."

The DVD showcases a 2011 production by the San Francisco Ballet, recorded by Austrian production company Bernhard Fleischer Moving Images for PBS Great Performances, Arte (Franco-German TV), NDR (North German Broadcasting) and WNET (New York Public Media). The production, which features interviews with Auerbach and Neumeier, was made into the award-winning DVD by C Major Entertainment and is distributed worldwide by Naxos. http://video.pbs.org/video/2169840795/

Auerbach's recent collaborators include the Netherlands Dance Theatre and choreographers Sol León and Paul Lightfoot ("Shine a Light"); Aszur Barton and the National Ballet of Canada ("Watch Her"); Goyo Montero and the Nuremberg State Ballet ("Don Juan"); Tim Plegge and the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe (“Momo”); and Terence Kohler on three ballets: "Take Your Time" for the Chinese National Ballet,  "11:11" for the Flanders National Ballet, and last season's full-length ballet "Cinderella" for the Finnish National Ballet.

Upcoming ballets by Auerbach include "Faust," choreographed by Goyo Montero for the Nuremberg State Ballet (December 2012), and "Heroes" choreographed by Terence Kohler for the Bavarian State Ballet (April 2013).

Lera Auerbach is represented by Hans Sikorski publishing and Harrison Parrott management.

http://www.leraauerbach.com
http://www.sikorski.de/225/en/auerbach_lera.html
http://www.harrisonparrott.com/artist/profile/lera-auerbach

Photos:
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